From the minute we were given approval to build our application for the eBay SM Apps Programme, we turned to our good friends and Ruby specialists [Applicake](http://applicake.com) to help us turn our idea into something real. As a result its been a collaborative effort from day one and so we asked Lead Developer Matt from Applicake to pen us his thoughts on the build. Here is his take.
**What are SM Apps?**
My colleague Ela from Applicake has already [written a few words about the launch](http://applicake.com/blog/index.php/2009/08/18/vzaar-ebay-app-went-live-were-one-of-the-first-ebay-developers/) of the vzaar Selling Manager App from a company perspective so I won’t spend too much time going into details. You can also read vzaar’s news of the release [here](http://vzaar.com/blog/2009/08/were-live-vzaar-enters-the-ebay-applications-programme).
In fact for me this project has always been known by its code name, **Project Echo** and I have to say it felt great to be involved with a super secret development in conjunction with a giant of the Internet like eBay!
**What Have We Done & Why Are We So Proud?**
In a nutshell my task was to integrate the vzaar application with the eBay API directly into the eBay Selling Manager platform. The end goal was to ensure that eBay sellers could then add video to their eBay listings, by using vzaar, directly at an eBay level. A Selling Manager user simply subscribes to the vzaar application and it will show up in their Applications tab in My eBay.
It’s a real distinction for us. Only a few applications have taken part in the initial launch so very few people have actually dealt with the eBay SM Apps API so far. eBay only launched the test API around six months ago and the test environment was only available something like two months ago. As you might imagine, the process was a bit of a challenge (almost no tutorials etc.) and the API itself was not perfect. Throughout the process we had to work closely with eBay technical support team to improve it and I have to say they were really supportive. The end result that we built the app on time and at Applicake we certainly take pride in being one of the first companies to work on the API.
**eBay Development for Dummies**
The great thing about eBay SM Apps API is that to integrate your application with eBay you can use your favorite programming language. I am a Ruby on Rails developer at Applicake which made the decision an easy one to make! To get stuff connected you only need to develop an interface that will allow eBay to subscribe and authenticate users to your app. eBay calls that Open eBay Participant Interface.
To make it work you simply need to learn how to generate responses for some XML calls that eBay make. Then, because eBay really cares about the security, you have to decrypt user data (eBay login, token etc) that therefore make authentication possible. Decryption requires writing your own decryptor. Again the eBay team have provided full documentation and examples written in Java but it was a bit challenging at the beginning as there was quite a lot stuff I had to take care of myself.
As soon as a developer goes through all that (and receive final approved from eBay!), sellers are free to subscribe to your app through the SM Apps interface. That in turn triggers the billing plan of choice and then the seller simply presses the magical Start button. From now on they are taken to the vzaar service, nicely displayed in an i-Frame on eBay.
As I mentioned – eBay decided to take payments off our backs given the wide-scale adoption of PayPal by sellers. As the developer team, we only have to make sure that eBay has access to our PayPal data.
The Highs & Lows
For debugging during the development process eBay had a designated sandbox server.
In general, it’s very handy – it lets you create as many listings and user accounts as needed. The weak point of the sandbox infrastructure was that eBay technical team were also using it for testing. So things were failing quite often. But SM Apps was still in the beta version at that time, so errors were expected and I am confident they have learned for future third party partnerships.
What was cool was that eBay offered great support and would offer to call me to discuss every problem. That created a very good work atmosphere and ensured me that I wouldn’t be left alone with any unsolved issues during the development process. They were also open to suggestions – vzaar designer Mauricio for example – complained about a horizontal line above SM Apps i-frame which, in his opinion, didn’t fit the layout. We passed this feedback to eBay and few weeks later the line was removed. Perfect.
As we neared launch, eBay organised a weekly open line for about one hour giving us developers the chance to raise questions and concerns. They were informing everyone involved about the progress on SM Apps and answering questions from developers. As a result there were little surprises and that’s all you can really ask for.
All in all, eBay have done what they could to make developing alongside their platform as easy as possible. As a result I wanted to end by sharing some resources for future generations of eBay SM Apps API developers:
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eBay Developers Programme
eBay's Sandbox Environment
eBay SM Apps Developer Homepage
If you have any specific questions I’ll be happy to answer them here or you can email me direct at Applicake.
